Paul Testifies to the Jews, Claims Roman Citizenship before the Tribune

“Paul replied, I am a Jew, from Tarsus in Cilicia, a citizen of no obscure city.  I beg you, permit me to speak to the people.  And when he had given him permission, Paul, standing on the steps, motioned with his hand to the people.  And when there was a great hush, he addressed them in the Hebrew language, saying, ‘Brothers and fathers, hear the defense that I now make before you.’…Paul said, ‘But I am a citizen by birth.’ So those who were about to examine him withdrew from him immediately, and the tribune also was afraid, for he realized that Paul was a Roman citizen and that he had bound him.” Acts 21:39-22:1; 22:28b-29 (ESV.  Read Acts 21:37 – 22:29).

When Paul was taken from the irate mob and arrested by the tribune and Roman soldiers, Paul asked for permission to speak to the tribune.  (We learn this tribune’s name by looking ahead to Acts 23: 26 when he writes a letter to Governor Felix concerning Paul). At first, when Claudius realized Paul could speak Greek, he asked if he was the Egyptian Jew who had led 4,000 men in a revolt against the Romans.  Paul told him he was a native of Tarsus, and wished to speak to the people who were accusing him.  Just as he had gotten the tribune’s attention by speaking Greek, he soon quieted the riotous mob by speaking Aramaic.  Paul, an educated man, was fluent in languages. To these Jews he gave his Jewish background, even to his persecution of the Christians prior to his marvelous conversion on the road to Damascus.  For a summary of how Paul had come to his current position, read carefully Acts 22:3-21.  It is a beautiful testimony of God’s work in Paul’s life.  His defense before the Jews was his Christian experience.  One’s personal Christian experience is definitely unarguable.  No one can refute what has happened between and individual and God.  Paul, who had stood on Mars Hill in Athens, Greece and spoken eloquently on the theme of “the unknown God” to whom that culture had statues throughout the city,  now stood before his Jewish accusers and gave his personal story of how God changed his life and made him a light to the Gentiles.  Note particularly verse 14.  It is a summary of Paul’s life but also of each Christian life.  It contains three important statements:  (1)  to know the will of God; (2) to see the Just One; and (3) to hear the voice of God.  His oration was heard until he stated that God told him to, “Go, for I will send you far away to the Gentiles.”  (Acts. 22:21).  This statement from Paul aroused the Jews again, and they yelled, “Away with such a fellow from the earth” For he should not be allowed to live.” (Acts 22:22).

The crowd became so unruly that the tribune ordered the soldiers to take Paul back into the barracks.  There he was to be scourged, beaten with a leather whip into which were tied pieces of sharp bone and lead.  It was an effort to get the truth, a confession, out of the accused.  Many did not survive the terrible scourging.  As he was on the rack ready to be beaten, Paul declared his Roman citizenship.  Roman law forbade scourging any citizen who had not been charged.  The tribune,  Claudius Lysias, knew he could lose his position and maybe even his own life from this injustice.  He himself had purchased his citizenship, and Paul was a Roman citizen by birth.  Paul knew his work for the Lord was not finished.  He claimed his citizenship and received a reprieve from the severe punishment of scourging.  Paul was using his Roman citizenship for the cause of Christ.  God was using the mighty Roman government to allow his servant Paul to eventually get to Rome.  With the same words as I concluded yesterday’s devotional, I will repeat again:  God’s ways are higher than man’s ways, in all ways, and always. To God be the glory!  

Mob Confusion and Paul’s Arrest

“Then all the city was stirred up, and the people ran together.  They seized Paul and dragged him out of the temple, and at once the gates were shut. And as they were seeking to kill him, word came to the tribune of the cohort that all Jerusalem was in confusion. He at once took soldiers and centurions and ran down to them. And when they saw the tribune and the soldiers, they stopped beating Paul.  Then the tribune came up and arrested him and ordered him to be bound with two chains.  He inquired who he was and what he had done.” –Acts 21:30-33 (ESV.  Read Acts 21:27-36).

This scripture shows how easily a riot can start and mass confusion occur.  Paul was undergoing the ritual seven days of purification.  The men for whom he had paid for their sacrifices as a part of their Nazarite vow were purified at the beginning of their vow, but anyone like Paul who had been so long associated with Gentiles, in order to be ceremonially clean, had to go through seven days of purification rites.  And then his attackers brought the charge that he had taken Greeks (Gentiles) into the temple area that was off-limits for them.  This was another of the rumors circulating, simply because they had seen Paul in the company of a man from Ephesus called Trophimus and assumed that he had gone into the sanctuary area of the temple with Paul.  Paul would not have taken a Gentile to that area because he knew the penalty was death.  The angry Jews dragged Paul outside, and the temple gates were shut, probably to prevent any further desecration to the sanctuary.  They were seeking to kill Paul. The Roman tribune’s response to the riot was immediate.  At the Tower of Antonio, the Herodian fortress at the northwest corner of the temple wall, soldiers kept close watch on proceedings around the temple area. They would immediately have reported the riot and how his accusers were beating Paul. Hearing the report, the commander (tribune) immediately took a contingent of the centurions and went to the scene.

It is amazing how quickly the mob desisted from beating Paul.  It was the Roman tribune’s task to keep the peace.  The mob would have known that their own lives were in great jeopardy for disturbing the peace.  Paul was arrested. Since the crowd was not in harmony in shouting their accusations, the tribune could not learn the true charges.  He had the soldiers take Paul to the barracks to protect him from the angry crowd and to learn from Paul himself what he had been accused of doing.  As they left the riot scene, the crowd was yelling “Away with him!” (v. 36). Is this not reminiscent of the crowd’s yelling “Crucify him!  Crucify him!” following Jesus’ arrest and mock trial? (see Luke 23:18 and John 19:15).

It was the time of Pentecost, an important Jewish festival fifty days after Passover, when offerings of firstfruits were presented.  Able-bodied Jewish men were expected to be at the temple to bring special firstfruits offerings. Jerusalem was very crowded, and with the general enthusiasm generated, a mob situation could easily erupt.  It seems that the tenor of the crowd, although many of them were Christians, was not on the fact that the Holy Spirit had appeared to believers first (more than twenty years earlier) on the day of Pentecost.  Their main emphasis was on punishing Paul for what they conceived was his gross sin of associating too readily with Gentiles.  They were majoring on minors and missing the mark.  Paul could have met his death that day, but because of the quick action of the Roman tribune and guards, his life was spared.  The gospel song declares, “God’s not finished with me yet!”  That was evident in the sparing of Paul’s life.  God had more work for him to do, even though prison was awaiting him.  He was in the safe custody of the mighty Roman garrison and the mobs could not touch him. God’s ways are higher than man’s ways, in all ways and always.       

Paul Meets with James and Shows Publicly His Reverence for Jewish Laws

“When we had come to Jerusalem, the brothers received us gladly.  On the following day Paul went in with us to James, and all the elders were present.  After greeting them, he related one by one the things that God had done among the Gentiles through his ministry.  And when they heard it, they glorified God...Do therefore what we tell you.  We have four men who are under a vow; take these men and purify yourself along with them and pay their expenses, so that they may shave their heads.  Thus all will know that there is nothing in what they have been told about you, but that you yourself also live in observance of the law.” –Acts 21:17-20a; 23-24 (ESV.  Read Acts 21:17-26).

It was both a glad and a bittersweet reunion when Paul ended his missionary journey at Jerusalem.  He had an audience before James, the brother of Jesus, who served as the “senior” pastor of the Jerusalem church.  They heard Paul as he related “one by one” (that is, gave a detailed report) in the outreach ministry to the Gentiles in the places he had been. But rumors were rife about Paul and his work.  Even though the Jerusalem church had written a letter to Gentile Christians to state they did not have to go through the Jewish rituals of the law to be a Christian, a group among them (the Judaizers) still thought the law according to Moses should be obeyed in its entirety, including all the interpretations of the law that made it burdensome.  Rumor had it that Paul had encouraged Jews to forsake their ancestral practices of the law.  This he had never done.  The leaders came up with a way, they thought, of placating Paul’s opponents.  They had four men who had taken a Nazarite vow. The vow entailed abstinence from strong drink, grapes or raisins for thirty days, no contact with a dead body, and several other abstentions.  They would cut their hair at the end of thirty days, go through ritual purification and offer sacrifices in the temple among which were a one-year old lamb for a sin offering, a ram for a peace offering, a basket of unleavened bread with oil, meat offerings and drink offerings.  It would have been costly to provide these for four men who probably did not have the resources to buy them for themselves.  Paul was asked to provide the money for sacrifices so the men could fulfill their vow.  And in so doing, he was to likewise purify himself.  He consented to do so, Paul, who had long preached that the law does not save anyone.  Was he compromising his beliefs to placate the elders and those who condemned Paul for being the apostle to the Gentiles?  Paul probably found the act distasteful and against his better judgment.  But to seek the peace and for the sake of the church, he agreed to the plan.  In so doing, he “gave notice when the days of purification would be fulfilled and the offering presented for each one of them” (v. 26).  Paul wrote to the Christians in Corinth:  “To the Jews I became as a Jew, in order to win Jews.  To those under the law I became as one under the law (though not being myself under the law) that I might win those under the law.”  (I Cor. 9:20).  He subordinated his own wishes in order to keep peace among the brethren.  “There is a time when compromise is not a sign of weakness but of strength” states Dr. William Barclay (Daily Study Bible: Acts, p. 170).

In one of my husband’s pastorates the church was voting whether to build a much needed educational complex.  One deacon, because he was very opposed to borrowing the sum of money needed for the undertaking, talked against the plan and sought to win others to his viewpoint.  But when the church in conference voted to accept the proposal, borrow the necessary funds, and begin the project, he, publicly, in church conference stood and pledged his support, stating that he would work for what the church voted to do.  A beautiful edifice was soon in place, and with increased attendance and more giving, the indebtedness was paid in an incredibly short time.  God was in the enterprise, and blessed it, using it to multiply those reached for teaching and evangelism.  With Paul, as we will see, his compliance to the elders’ wishes did not meet with as much success.  False rumors die hard, and they persisted about Paul.  He would soon be the center of mob violence and arrest.  He knew troubles would come, even as he set his face steadfastly toward Jerusalem.  But God’s plan prevailed, despite the sufferings Paul had to endure.  In Paul’s actions, God received the glory.

Paul Sets His Face Steadfastly Toward Jerusalem

“While we were staying for many days, a prophet named Agabus came down from Judea.  And coming to us, he took Paul’s belt and bound his own feet and hands and said, ‘Thus says the Holy Spirit, This is how the Jews at Jerusalem will bind the man who owns this belt and deliver him into the hands of the Gentiles’.  When we heard this, we and the people there urged him not to go up to Jerusalem.  Then Paul answered, ‘What are you doing, weeping and breaking my heart? For I am ready not only to be imprisoned but even to die in Jerusalem for the name of the Lord Jesus.’ And since he would not be persuaded, we ceased and said, ‘Let the will of the Lord be done.’”-Acts 21:10-14 (ESV.  Read Acts 21:1-17).

In Acts 21:1-17 we have recorded Luke’s summary of Paul’s last lap of his third missionary journey.  Leaving Miletus and the Ephesian elders who had traveled there to bid him farewell and hear his last instructions, Paul (with Luke, and possibly others, for the first person pronoun “we” is used) boarded a coastal sailing vessel.  The places mentioned were a day’s journey by ship where they stopped for the night:  from Miletus to Cos, from Cos to Rhodes (island ports).  And then at the port of Patara (in Lycia) they found a larger sailing vessel and took passage for the 400-mile open sea journey to Phoenecia.  They landed at Tyre on the coast of Syria where they had a seven-day layover, for the ship unloaded its cargo there.  In Tyre they gathered disciples and had a time of fellowship. Everywhere Paul stopped on the third mission journey, he found Christians to greet and encourage. The believers warned Paul not to go to Jerusalem, but he could not be dissuaded.  The Tyrian Christians, with wives and children, accompanied the mission team to the beach to bid them fond farewells when they set sail.  The next stop was Ptolemais for a day, again with a brief reunion with believers there.  The next day they arrived at Caesarea, in the province of Palestine.  The journey to Jerusalem would be by land from this port.  Paul and his team entered the house of Philip, one of the seven original deacons who himself had become an evangelist.  It is interesting to note Luke’s comment on Philip’s family:  “He had four unmarried daughters who prophesied” (v. 9). Agabus, a prophet from Judea, came, and under the Holy Spirit’s prompting, he took Paul’s belt, binding his own hands and feet as an object lesson. This indicated that if Paul went on to Jerusalem he would be arrested (bound) and delivered into the hands of the Gentiles.  But Paul could not be dissuaded.  Like Jesus prior to His arrest and crucifixion, Paul set his face toward Jerusalem.  Those trying to dissuade Paul resigned themselves and said, “Let the will of the Lord be done” (v. 14).  Arriving in Jerusalem, a three-day journey by foot from Caesarea, they lodged in the house of Mnason of Cyprus, “an early disciple.”  Once in Jerusalem “the brothers received us gladly.”  Luke does not give details about Paul’s delivery of the love gift of money made by the Gentile churches to the believers at Jerusalem.  Was this part of their “receiving gladly,” or was the gift not mentioned because the legalists would be suspicious of any gift borne by Paul and coming from Gentiles?

With great determination, Paul went to Jerusalem, knowing in his own heart and being warned by others that danger awaited him there.  Why did he feel compelled to go?  The division between the legalistic believers and the Gentile believers had continued to grow, even after the Jerusalem Conference some twenty years previously.  Paul was part of the answer—and part of the problem.  He could not address the problem if he stayed away from Jerusalem.  He had a God-given assignment to go, regardless of what might happen to him.  And go he must, and did!